Originally having the draft 1 Need to expand the draft 1 to 1200-1400 words The requirements are in the draft 1 No plagiarism Please ask the same person to continue to write it Prompt.docx neyrat1.pdf

To complete the job, to humanize every last inch of the planet, to manage the whole thing: the term stewardship , a particularly fashionable term used often in current environmental research, helps us to understand these opera - tions. According to the authors of the article “Earth Stewardship: Science for Action to Sustain the Human- Earth System,” Earth stewardship is a “science that facilitates actively shaping [our emphasis] trajectories of social - ecological change to enhance ecosystem resilience and human well- being.” 4 The funda - mental idea that we will explore, throughout the second part of this book, is This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Neyrat, Frederic. “The Logic of Geopower: Power, Management, and Earth Stewardship." The Unconstructable Earth: An Ecology of Separation . Fordham U, 2019, pp. 56-67. Permission to reprint by Fordham University Press via CCC. 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

The Logic of Geopower 57 the ability to manage the Earth in its current and future states. The authors of this article tell us that it’s preferable to anticipate a problem rather than have to remedy a problem. That is, a problem for humans: “The goal of earth stewardship is not to protect people from nature, but rather to protect nature for human well- being.” So we will not be surprised to see nature considered as an ensemble of “services.” As for geoengineering, the authors warn of its potential dangers: How can nations come to an agreement over several centu - ries in order to collectively manage the climate in spite of the political changes that these countries might experience? What would happen if a war broke out? Nevertheless, the authors consider that the “technological paradigm” is something not to be rejected but rather to be reconciled with the “paradigm of economic development” as well as the adapting mosaic paradigm , in regard to the resilience of ecosystems. The fact that the last of these paradigms carefully avoids using the word ecological in its definition is not mere coincidence: The stewardship of the Earth is supposed to define a perspective that is capable of integrating more metrics than those that have traditionally been taken into consideration by ecologists. Are we trying to say, once and for all, that the idea of stewardship is, in itself, bad? Surely its ethical dimension, the demand for more responsibil- ity that such an idea calls for, cannot actually be harmful! Nevertheless, we should recall that the word steward once denoted an agent with royal power (a financial steward, a steward of justice, etc.); in the eighteenth century, this name was applied to certain functionaries in charge of public organizations or services. 5 How has it come to pass today that we no longer seem to notice that the definition of Earth stewardship appears to have taken on the exact op - posite of its original meaning! Whereas stewardship was supposed to be prac - ticed for the benefit of an other , for someone or something else (the sovereign, the State, the public), with its geo- constructivist meaning, stewardship becomes a practice for the benefit of the stewar d—as if stewardship concealed within it a self - stewardship [auto- intendance]. In the end, the Reversal of the Frontier doesn’t leave much room for alterities (whether extraplanetary or terrestrial) when these alterities aren’t considered human in the first place. Because auto- stewardship no longer contains any sort of ethical dimension, it becomes indis - cernible from some k ind of sel f- service and, therefore, no longer allows us the convenience of being able to judge various technologies: It becomes difficult to resist the temptation of accepting climate engineering and its promises of an ecospherical thermostat; it becomes difficult to say no to something that presents itself as a possible improvement of our comfort. As a consequence, we won’t be surprised to read articles that are clearly dedicated to research - ing a possible reconciliation between Earth stewardship and geoengineering, This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

58 The Mirror of the Anthropocene such as the article “Geo- engineering, Governance, and Social- Ecological Systems” by Victor Galaz, a political science professor and researcher at the Stock holm Resilience Center, who is work ing on questions of “global envi - ronmental governance.” 6 This article is not that far from the “rhetoric of plan B” that we examined earlier: The author makes a list of all the horrors that could arise out of climate engineering, yet he still tries to demonstrate that “Earth stewardship and geo- engineering are not necessarily in conflict, but instead could be viewed as complementary approaches.” 7 The final objective, announced in the last couple of paragraphs of the article, is crystal clear: “to shift from unintentional modifications of the Earth system” to “an approach where we intentionally try to modif y the climate and associated biogeophys - ical systems to humanity’s benefit.” 8 Indeed, how can we resist the power of attraction of a geoengineering that has been generously devoted to humanity’s good fortune? The only way of resisting this temptation consists in using the concept of stewardship (as certain authors have done) by way of conserving within it a part of alterity: as not simply being a service for oneself. This is what the au- thors of the article “Global Assemblages, Resilience, and Earth Stewardship in the Anthropocene” tried to develop, for whom the concept of Earth steward - ship is synonymous with societal obligations to nature. 9 The problem becomes the “decoupling” between these obligations to nature and those obligations that would only concern humans or socioeconomic systems. This decoupling has been put in place from the very beginning of the Anthropocene— in other words, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that the authors of the article qualif y as— and this is a crucial point —being European. Instead of sim - ply think ing the Anthropocene from an anthropogenic point of view, we must also consider this new era as a change in governance: the appearance of “global assemblages” transforming state sovereignty merely into one aspect among many others of a “constellation” of various bodies of power (multinational cor - porations, governmental and nongovernmental organizations). These global assemblages have a tendency to privilege the Global North at the detriment of the Global South, turning the latter into space for the exploitation of raw materials as well as human beings. The article illustrates the variety of ways the “asymmetrical ” relations that constitute the global economic system of the Anthropocene—for example, the coffee producers in Papua New Guinea earn an average of fifteen cents an hour for coffee that is sold for twelve dollars per pound at Starbucks; or, another example, the fact that societies living in the Arctic regions have done very little to contribute to the problems of climate change but are at the same time some of the most affected by these climate changes. 10 This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

The Logic of Geopower 59 In order to break with these asymmetrical relations that lead just as much to the impoverishment of humans as to the deterioration of the ecosystem, the authors of the article put their faith in transnational activist networks fighting to protect local environments from forms of destructive exploitation. As an example, they refer to the ongoing struggles in South America and insist in the way in which certain countries such as Ecuador (but we could also just as easily add Bolivia) have introduced into their constitution rights for nature.

Instead of considering nature as a simple exploitable object, nature is consid - ered as a subject that we must respect. 11 A source, and not simply a resource — a “Mother Earth ” with rights, one of which would be the power to “regenerate” itself. 12 By starting from a local political point of view, and no longer a view - point from the stratosphere, a resilience and a stewardship that leave a place for the alterity of nonhuman worlds can fully be realized. Would this mean that humans would lose a bit of their power? Can the Anthropocene make a place for that which is not simply human or Western? The Two Political Bodies of the Anthropocene The only way to create such a place consists in dividing the supposedly unified subject of the Anthropocene in order to shed light on what this false unity strives to conceal. Whereas certain people see nothing more within this con - cept than Humank ind’s power over the Earth, the power of humanity as k ind practicing a technologically assisted stewardship on a planet that is becoming climatized and integrally anthropoformed, it is essential to provide a place for the existence of a counterpower — the counterpower seen within the va - riety of activist organizations fighting for their territories. And yet, the entire discourse of the Anthropocene is against this sort of necessary division—the Anthropocene is a political discourse that doesn’t say its name, that speaks of Earth stewardship in order to avoid speak ing of the various ongoing terrestrial divisions. Let’s return to the way in which the grand narrative of the Anthropocene tells its story, at night around the (nuclear) campfire: “We k now, the geo- constructivists say, that we’re in midst of the Anthropocene, and we are the first humans to be aware of this.” In a certain way, for the geo- constructivists, it’s as if the Anthropocene just began, as if the nominal event Anthropocene— that is to say, the simple invention of the word—formed in accordance with the real event . “Welcome to the Anthropocene!” gives one the impression that we have just entered into this era—it’s no longer the era of the great accelera- tion, but spontaneous generation . . . The mythical grand narrative turns into a complete spectacle, and the Anthropocene turns into a theme park, some This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

60 The Mirror of the Anthropocene k ind of Jurassic Park where humans would be the heroes. Particularly intel- ligent heroes: If we are indeed the first humans to truly understand what is happening to us, and the significant role we are playing in this planetary story, that would mean that the preceding generations understood nothing and had no idea what they were doing to the environment. Hence the idea found in the writings of the geo- constructivists from Carl Sagan to Paul Crutzen: 1) before, humanity changed the environment in an unintentional way; 2) from now on, thanks to the experts of the Anthropocene, humanity can deliberately change the environment. This idea finds one of its major theoretical foundations in the work of sociologist Ulrich Beck. Beck ’s work postulates a division between a first modernity that is unconscious of its actions, fascinated by the idea of progress, creating the Watt machine out of pure joy and happiness while an - chored within a denial of the environment; then there is a second, reflective modernity, capable of tak ing into consideration the risks and “attachments” between humans and nonhumans—a modernity discovering the fragility of the biosphere. And yet, this temporal division doesn’t hold up: 1) On the one hand, the Anthropocene had been actively, deliberately, and consciously installed. As Christophe Bonneuil and Jean- Baptiste Fressoz note, the entrepreneurs of the Industrial Revolution actively shaped the Anthropo - cene—Saint- Simon was already aware of the fact that the transformation of the globe would ultimately transform it. 13 The development of the coal indus - try in the United States in the nineteenth century, combined with the more general use of fossil fuels and the rise of the automobile, is not the result of some sort of inexorable progress but of decisions that could have been different than those that were made: The Anthropocene—the two historians say—was a deliberate “thermocene,” the fruit of choices concerning energ y consump- tion. The initial choice that was made in regards to energ y use was “the choice of fire.” And it was this choice that eventually led to the “thermo - industrial civilization.” 14 As far as so- called progress is concerned, it would be useful to compare how this choice of thermo- industrialization gave way to what Bon - neuil and Fressoz name the “thanatocene”: an age of technologically assisted death, reinforced by the massive possibilities for destruction that were created in the twentieth century. War is the pursuit of the Anthropocene by other means. Since the human being is not merely a geological force when creating roads or cities but is a force when destroying them as well, how many defor - estations and tactical destructions of territories have been used as motives for war? A myriad of passages abound, leading from thanatological force to urban - ological power, and the authors of The Shock of the Anthropocene describe the inventions of “ brutal technologies” (Paul  R. Josephson) that have gone from “military use” to “civilian use”—for example, we can think of the number of This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

The Logic of Geopower 61 times chemicals used in warfare have been reconverted into pesticides. A de- struction with a myriad of faces: the face of war, but also the faces of capitalism and consumerism—to consume materials can also lead to a widespread lethal excess of consumption. In this sense, as Bonneuil and Fressoz explain, the An - thropocene is a “phagocene.” This term obviously refers to the idea of a global consumption of planetary resources—an immediate destruction for the satis - faction of needs. But the term also defines a way of producing the nondurable:

The capitalist entrepreneurs k new very well what they were doing when they began to spread contempt for any form of recycling; they also k now what they are doing when they create the planned obsolescence of objects. 2) On the other hand, there is the “phronocene,” an age of prudence ( phrone- sis ), a sensitivity to the environment, that has accompanied the Watt machine since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. 15 In fact, since the beginning of the modern period, there has always been “reflexivity”: from Charles Fourier proclaiming the material deterioration of the planet, to the twentieth- century scientists who saw the Anthropocene begin to accelerate following the end of World War 2. There has always been a sensitivity to the fragile circumfusa (the environmental things) of the eighteenth century. As early as 1770 there was an awareness of the rapport between deforestation and the possibility of climate change, an awareness between the inevitable exhaustion of resources:

We k new, and the oppositions made against the “phagocene” were innumer - able and unrelenting. The consequences: Instead of a division of modernity, a division between a before and an after, between an initial ignorant modernity that then became k nowledgeably informed, what we must consider is a division within moder- nity itself. Instead of a chronological division, we must consider a political division. Modernity didn’t have one head , a head that was initially naïve and then well- informed, but rather modernity had two bodies: one of them deliberately constructed the Anthropocene, starting from precise economic, political, and technological choices whose effects, if not the cause, consisted of completely ignoring the environment and considering it as nonexistent. The other body: a body in fierce opposition to deforestation, a body of petitions and associations formed throughout the nineteenth century denouncing industrial pollution and the maladies resulting from it, a body continually sounding the alarm, having already understood to what extent progress intrinsically generated risks, and to what extent nature and society are inherently interconnected.

Such is the double body of the Anthropocene: an insensitive, industrial scorch - ing body and a sensitive, environmental body that is often scorched. If the first body prefers practicing a stewardship of the Earth as viewed from outer space, the second body would like for the Earth stewardship we see emerging to be This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

62 The Mirror of the Anthropocene undertaken within territories inhabited by beings who experience in their flesh and bones what being in the world truly implies.

Anthropocene or Capitalocene?

The great fresco seems to be crumbling before very our eyes: The grand nar - rative is becoming more and more the figure of a vast lie. Humanity, a unified geological force? It would perhaps be good to remind ourselves that the effects of climate change are the result of specific countries, during specific time pe - riods, and not simply the effects of humanity as such: We shouldn’t place the same level of responsibility on countries like Chad or Ghana with countries such as the United States, or those of the European continent and India! In 1900, Great Britain and the United States represented 55 percent of total CO 2 emissions, in 1950, they represented 65 percent of total carbon emissions, and still almost 50 percent in 1980. 16 In a scathing article, Andreas Malm and Alf Hornborg put forth the critique of the Anthropocene as an ideolog y:

Steam engines were not adopted by some natural- born deputies of the hu- man species: by the nature of the social order of things, they could only be installed by the owners of the means of production. A tiny minority even in Britain, this class of people comprised an infinitesimal fraction of the population of Homo sapiens in the early 19th century. 17 For Malm and Hornborg, the Anthropocene is an ideolog y “ by default,” not the effect of some sort of political malignancy but the consequence of the fact that the field of studies relative to climate change is dominated by the natural sciences. 18 Humanity can only be defined as a geological force through the effect of a conceptual naturalization or, rather, renaturalization. Studies on climate change prove that social relations determine the natural conditions and denaturalize changes in the climate, thus demonstrating their artificial character; but, Malm and Hornborg argue, within the area of what they call “Anthropocene think ing,” “natural scientists extend their world- views to so - ciety” and attribute to Homo sapiens (anthropos , humanity as a geological force, etc.) responsibility for these changes: “Not nature, but human nature—this is the Anthropocene displacement.” 19 A displacement the authors also attribute to Chakrabarty, who is accused of succumbing to this naturalism. This nat - uralism will directly lead not only to an underestimation of class differences but also to the question of race. Not all members of so - called humanity are vulnerable in the same manner, and Malm and Hornborg insist on the way in which this vulnerability directly affects—in vastly different ways—the various This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

The Logic of Geopower 63 white and black neighborhoods in New Orleans after Katrina. Or the way the wealthy or impoverished communities in Haiti or Manhattan are affected af- ter a hurricane, or those in Bangladesh and the Netherlands are affected after a rise in sea waters: “For the foreseeable future—indeed, as long as there are human societies on Earth—there will be lifeboats for the rich and privileged.” 20 We claimed that the Anthropocene still has two bodies. But we’re tak ing an additional theoretical step here: In contrast to a naturalist displacement , it would be necessary to affirm that humanity is not a global geological agent.

Which means two things: 1) Firstly, that humanity is not a global geological agent, since there are coun - tries that are different than others (the United States is not Ghana), there are different class systems (the rich are not the poor), and there are racial differences (African Americans are not placed within the same conditions as white Amer - ic a n s); 2) but this also means that humanity is not a global geological agent—in other words, changes in the climate, far from simply expressing an anthro - pogenic effect, are always sociogenic . A conclusion becomes clear: There is no such thing as an age of Humank ind, there is no Anthropocene . What there is are political, economic, and technological decisions, and social groups, different social bodies that an ideological screen—namely a “naturalizing” screen—has trouble unif ying. From this point forward, the mirror of the Anthropocene is cracked—shattered into as many bodies as there are social, economic, and racial divisions. Does this mean that we should get rid of the concept of the Anthropocene? Would shattering this mirror help us to prevent the irresistible installation of the screen of geoengineering? Before answering this question, we need to recognize a hidden flaw within the theoretical approach that consists of unmask ing the effects of “natural- ization” specific to the Earth sciences that, according to Malm and Hornborg, orient the dominant discourse of the Anthropocene. In fact, what these two au - thors don’t seem to take into consideration is the fact that the ge o- constructivists don’t believe in nature , whether it be a nature in regard to the Earth or a human nature. What the geo- constructivists believe in is what Jason W. Moore calls “cheap” nature, which is also a k ind of degraded or debased nature, as the verb “to cheapen” suggests. And yet, if cheap nature is a k ind of debased nature, it’s actually less than nature: It becomes nature in a diminished form. If it proves necessary to question the term Anthropocene and instead focus on the term Capitalocene , it’s in order to demonstrate that the capitalist economy is first and foremost a “way of organizing nature.” 21 The Capitalocene is the mode of the organization of nature that consists in reducing nature to almost nothing at all. Moore claims that this reduction is visible in environmental degradation This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

64 The Mirror of the Anthropocene but first and foremost strives for the incorporation of nature within the capitalist economy in the form of a simple factor of production: From now on, nature will work in the service of capitalism. Nature will be considered as nothing more than this service and factor of production. 22 The quasi- seamless success of this reduction and incorporation of nature into the capitalist economy has been confirmed in the article “Living in the Anthropocene” by the journalist Christian Schwägerl and co - written with Paul Crutzen:

The long- held barriers between nature and culture are break ing down. It’s no longer us against “Nature.” Instead, it’s we who decide what nature is and what it will be. 23 In case the message wasn’t clear enough, the last sentence of the article rings out as a piercing reminder: “Remember, in this new era, nature is us.” But there is nothing at all natural about this “us” that has swallowed the Earth so as to regurgitate it in a new form! It’s a colorless “us,” genderless and with - out nationality, that has the capacity for shaping the Earth, as an amorphous planet without a history for terranthropoforming . Yes, it’s true, on one hand, the geo- constructivist recognizes the relations that unif y nature and culture; but on the other hand, he absolutely rejects this space of relations for the benefit of a metaphysical, exceptional, anatural humanity capable of escaping the laws of gravitational force, becoming a cyborg in the heart of space, a creature no longer constrained by breathing or having to concern itself with its material b o d y.

24 Can we really consider such a state of ontological exception as “ human nature”? Or rather its opposite? One could argue that the concept of “ human nature” was precisely coined so as to conceal the biological and terrestrial di - mension of the human condition; but then it’s time to get rid of it. Our goal is not to reject the sociological analysis of the Anthropocene. But this analysis should not lead us, in the name of the necessary critique of “natu - ralism,” to discard Chakrabarty’s attempt to rethink humanity as a species— not as a naturalized subject but as a negative one. This is a point we will be returning to in the following chapters: declaring oneself to be postnatural is to completely plunge de facto into the warm embrace of geo- constructivist meaning and forget that the end of the division between nature/culture was effectuated for the benefit of culture, technologies, and human colonization.

Thus, we believe it’s possible to state that one of the beneficial effects of the concept of the Anthropocene could be, in contrast to an abstract “us” made up of astronaut designers of the spaceship Earth, that it forces us to reconsider the status of the human being: The Anthropocene should be the era where it becomes impossible to not think of ourselves as living beings, the era where This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

The Logic of Geopower 65 “cheap nature” turns out to be an ecological impossibility. However, it has be- come crystal clear that the astronautical mirror of the Anthropocene and the screen of geoengineering actively prevent this self- awareness, this corporeal commitment to our sociogenic activities, this indisputable recognition of the reality of the Capitalocene.

The Politics of Geo- constructivism and Climate Justice:

The Minoritarian Bodies of the Anthropocene We have now reached the conclusion of the first part of this book. Geo- constructivist politics is underpinned by what we will call an anaturalist po - sition. The objective of this position is to become capable of getting rid of everything that could induce the least bit of resistance to the reformatting proj - ects of the Earth. However, terrestrial nature is a form of alterity, an outside, a material recalcitrant to the control of engineers: For a geo - constructivist, nature is that which continually risks manifesting itself in an unpredictable nature. To claim that nature doesn’t exist is, like some sort of magical invoca- tion, to deny the real of this stubborn alterity —the real that risks, through the implementation of climate engineering, mak ing a violent return like the return of the repressed. Furthermore, to claim that the Earth is not the Earth but simply a planet without any specific qualities, like some sort of New Con - tinent waiting for the arrival of the geo- constructivist explorers as the new Christopher Columbus, is a way of denying the true alterity, the true singu - larity of the Earth. 25 As with any geo- constructivist expression, the rejection of terrestrial nature is not a simple description or an ideological veil clothing a discourse; it is performative: The politics of geo- constructivism are founded on the anaturalist axiom that allows geoengineers, as well as any others who share this subjective position—whether they are CEOs investing millions of dollars into research dedicated to a climate shield, journalists, or essayists, such as Mark Lynas who tells us that the human species is “divinely” capable of geoengineering 26— of exempting itself from the possible consequences and futures of its decisions. We have tried to show in considerable detail that this psychological state of exception has been based on a representation of an ab - stract and off - planet h u m a n i t y.

In a certain way, the whole environmental justice movement is opposed to such a representation. The founding axiom of this movement is nothing more or less than to always grasp the entirety of the ecological and socioeconomic conditions to which each industrial decision (the installation of an incinerator, frack ing, the construction of a dam, etc.) may give way. 27 We will therefore follow the thesis put forth by Giovanna Di Chiro: “Environmental struggles This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

66 The Mirror of the Anthropocene are struggles for the reproduction of the social.” 28 In other words, and contrary to the “ideological position” of “mainstream environmentalism” founded on the “separation between humans and the natural ‘world,’ ” we must affirm that “people are an integral part of what should be understood as the envi - r on me nt .” 29 An attack on the environment is therefore always an attack on the conditions for life, for the survival and reproduction of human life. In this light, it is strik ing to discern that geo- constructivism seems to reproduce the same division as traditional environmentalism—that is, the division between “ humans” and the “natural world ”! Nevertheless, geo - constructivism does not base this division on the necessity for protecting the environment but on the necessity for protecting Humankin d: For the geo- constructivist, it’s first and foremost Hu - mank ind that must be removed from the recalcitrant materiality of the Earth. Indeed, a number of characteristics have been removed from this Human - k ind—that is, erased: “Does the ‘anthropos’ of the Anthropocene have sexual organs [un sexe], a race, or a gender?,” asks Giovanna Di Chiro; and she re - sponds in the negative. 30 It’s true, the constructivist politics of the Anthro - pocene require a humank ind capable of confronting anything thanks to its thermo- industrial megaphone, the necessity of geoengineering. In opposition to this politics that only reflects on Earth stewardship from above, environ - mental justice strives to listen and be attentive to the minoritarian bodies of the Anthropocene in order to grant them a voice. In this light, we should recall the violent critique addressed to Chakrabarty by Malm and Hornborg, a critique that we could also extend to all those who consider humanity as a unified, globalized subject: The globalization of the subject anthropos is always for the benefit of the dominant body at the detriment of minoritarian bodies. Hence the idea that as long as there will be “ human societies,” (and by this, we also mean class differences) there will always be “ lifeboats” (for the privileged few). This is geographically undeniable; but it is nevertheless chronologically problematic. Of course, it is the communities of color residing in the Global North and the marginalized people of the Global South who are, for the most part, receiving the lashings of climate change. Sometimes within the silence of the media who undervalue the “environmentalism of the poor” and underrep - resent the “slow violence” (Rob Nixon) of the toxic processes that transnational companies export to the Global North. 31 But with the exploitation of extreme forms of energ y (frack ing, tar sands, strip mining, deep sea mining), including in the Global North, the zones sacrificed on the altar of economic develop - ment have a vicious tendency of seeping into the gardens of the privileged. A metonymy of a civilization that made the “choice of fire,” frack ing carbonizes everything it touches: Rocks, mountain summits, gardens, stubborn indige - nous peoples, everything that hinders access to fossil fuels must be destroyed. This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?

The Logic of Geopower 67 “We’re all in the same sink ing boat,” proclaims Deeohn Ferris (a public figure of the environmental justice movement), who also adds, “only people of color are closest to the hole.” 32 One of the most crucial stakes of contemporary political ecolog y will be to solder together questions regarding the environment with those regarding questions of race—as the members of the Midwest Compass Group have re - cently written, “Political ecolog y begins when we say: Black Lives Matter.” 33 This welding together will allow for different types of minoritarian bodies of the Anthropocene to coalesce, these bodies that are the most exposed to the harsh realities of the Anthropocene and the other minoritarian bodies to come who must understand that they will end up in the same position once human societies no longer persist except under conditions that are becoming more and more unlivable—more and more deprived of what we can really call “a world.” This content downloaded from 132.239.54.119 on Sat, 08 Feb 2020 00:28:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 04/20/2020 - RS0000000000000000000002881336 (Qi Fang) - PLEISTOCENE. HOLOCENE. CLIMATE CHANGE. ANTHROPOCENE?